Nasby Building

Nasby Building
Nasby Building
	Nasby Building in August 2022.
General information
Type	office
Location	605 Madison Avenue,; Toledo, Ohio
Completed	1891-1895
Height
Architectural	135 ft (41 m)
Roof	124 ft (38 m)
Technical details
Floor count	8

The Nasby Building is a 135 ft (41 m) tall high-rise building located at 605 Madison Avenue in Downtown Toledo.^[1] It stood as Toledo's tallest building for 11 years, from its completion in 1895 until the completion of the Nicholas Building in 1906.

History

The eight-story structure was constructed between 1891 and 1895 by the real estate man Horace Walbridge at the corner of Madison Avenue and Huron Street in Toledo's business center.^[2] The building was designed by Edward Fallis, a prominent Toledo architect, who maintained his offices in the building from 1894 until his death in 1927.

The design incorporated an eight-story office block which recalled the Chicago School of design with a taller Renaissance style tower located nearest the corner of Madison and Huron. The tower section of the building was said to be modeled after the Giralda^[3] in Seville, Spain in honor of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.

The building was named the Nasby Building in 1895. The tower section included an ornate cupola which reached an architectural height of 187 feet (57 m)^[3] above the streets. The cupola was removed in the 1930s, which reduced the architectural height to 135 feet (41 m).

In the 1960s, the Nasby Building and the adjacent Wayne Building were covered with a facade of glass and enameled asbestos panels to give the appearance of a single structure.^[4]^[5] The four-story Wayne Building, was built as a bank in 1924 and contains a large and ornate bank lobby. The resurfaced structures were renamed the Madison Building.